The Hamilton Soapworks
The Hamilton Soapworks complex is the main base of the Motor Marauders, the resident Specters of Detroit. Origins- The Hamilton Soapworks building was constructed in 1933 as a storage facility available for monthly rental, the Hamilton building was originally a two-story brownstone along M-5's Haggerty Extension. The Weiss and Hardbottle Auction House purchased it as a display venue in 1942, adding a third floor and basement, and constructing a grand office with an attached gun library. Post-WW2 Era- After Weiss and Hardbottle fell on hard times, the facility was put up for purchase and was snapped up by a construction firm on July 6th, 1953, several weeks after the auction house declared bankruptcy. The grand office was converted into workers' quarters while the gun library was used as a storeroom for tools, the many racks laden with shovels and picks where once guns had sat. The firm added a garage and foundry to the building's facilities, and created a small monopoly on local steel until union riots killed the firm (and several workers) in the summer of 1961. Congressman and AVON- The Hamilton was briefly subject to the attentions of a Michigan congressman as a potential safe house for his family during the Cold War (a fallout shelter was added beneath the basement but never saw official use), but re-election saw the investors move elsewhere in the US and for three years the facility sat dormant.In 1964 the AVON Company began renting the space as a chemical research plant for the testing and design of their beauty products. Their occupation (1964-1976) was the longest of all the Hamilton's previous owners (beating Weiss and Hardbottle by one year and six days), and the foundry was re-equipped with a series of chemical laboratories. The company's profit expansion since buying the facility exploded, and new products were emerging on an almost daily basis. When the AVON Company finally moved on, most of the internal facilities had been restored or upgraded, and the building was now known as the Hamilton Soapworks. The Motor Marauders- In 1992, the Detroit-based Specter team known as the Motor Marauders adopted the Soapworks as their new base of operations after their original base (a bunker beneath Harper Woods) collapsed during a battle with an Ontario werewolf gang. Revamping and restoring all of the equipment in the Soapworks, the three Specters (Marshall French, Carmine 'Tal' Napoli, and Lori Calbrite) also restored the gun library and modified the chemistry labs to produce fuel, munitions, and explosives. Unfortunately, they did not have the tools or knowledge to fix the smelting furnaces or crucibles. In 2004 the sub-basement (former fallout shelter) suffered a minor floor collapse which opened into a far-flung tunnel of the Detroit Salt Mine. In the gloom of the tunnels, the three* Specters uncovered a strange object among the skeletal remains of several miners, which seemed to have gone undisturbed for decades. It is unknown exactly what transpired in the salt mine, but a combination of hospital, morgue, and forensic records, as well as the Specter initiatives own collected data, indicates that Napoli and French died from massive shock and panic-induced nervous shutdown, while Calbrite perished from explosive trauma and second-degree burns. The sub-basement was collapsed (sealed?) and the property passed into the hands of a new owner. For nine years (2004-2012), the Soapworks were occupied by a single Specter, Jordan Beck . The Passing of the Torch- Beck stood a lonely vigil until fall 2012, when two other young men (friends of Beck, in fact) were transformed into Specters by an unknown third party. These Specters, Chris Wheaton and Joseph Foley, proved themselves capable of operating much of the equipment and weapons that had been offloaded to the Hamilton in the intervening years. Wheaton repaired the crucibles and performed a complete overhaul of the chemical labs, and converted a disused assembly room into a modular combat suite. Foley also contributed to the base's renovation, designing a 3D security system compatible with Wheaton's NASRAM** security system. Other modifications to the facility include an expansion of the gun library to accommodate some of the Specter's more exotic weapons, such as the Fallen Star PPW and the 'Pretty Woman', a portable punt-gun. The facility is also equipped with a Nether-Radiant sensor array, and an explosive failsafe. Further modifications to the facility have yet to be revealed, but it is almost guaranteed that the Soapworks have yet to divulge all of their secrets. *It has been theorized, though not proven, that Jordan Beck was present in the tunnels that day. **Non-lethal Anti-Siege device, Regulated Armed Mechanism.